melannen | More Joy: Itchy Coding Fingers Edition

More Joy: Itchy Coding Fingers Edition

I don't have anything super joyful for more joy day, but I do still have itchy coding fingers. I forget that the reason I don't code very much anymore is that I haven't really learned how to stop coding yet.

So:

sara has declared February Dreamwidth is for Shitposting month (sorry, too late to take it back):

DREAMWIDTH IS FOR SHITPOSTING: AN EXERCISE IN FEBRUARY

Since I have suggested it twice in comments and people seem to like the idea, I now propose it formally, a solution to two experiences we might like not to have: one, February, when it rains, or is excessively hot, or is in some other way invariably unsatisfactory! a month from which we would like to be distracted until circumstances improve! and two, this illusion that DREAMWIDTH IS FOR SERIOUS, which...no, I am here to assure you that we have been entirely full of shit on this website since the dawn of same. BUT! you say, Sara, everyone here is OLD and also ERUDITE AS FUCK and sometimes it is ALL A BIT MUCH.

I don't know if I will participate because I am shit at shitposting (it either becomes srs longform meta or homestuck references with me, no middle ground) but I look forward to seeing everyone else shitposting like crackerjack that month.

She included an AMAZING list of suggested topics, but she made the mistake of saying "or there could be a randomizer; or there could be any number of things. But there aren't." and the thing is, I had this randomizer just sitting around, so... now there is a randomizer for it?

shiptoast topic generator

I had that code just lying around because it is basically the code from the les miserables random pairing generator

(there is also one that is just injokes from miseres chat. Ah, sweet shitposting nostalgia.)

I was going to offer to make random pairing generators with that code for anybody who has a list of things they would like to randomly pair, but actually, it's REALLY SIMPLE code, so instead, I am going to tell you how to do it YOURSELF, even if you think you can't write code.

And I am going to do that merely by giving you the entire text of the random pairing generator, complete with comments in it that tell you exactly what to do to change stuff. I encourage anyone who would like to make their own javascript program to make a random shit generator of their own!

Here's how to do it: either copy + paste the code in the box below into a TEXT EDITOR (notepad is the basic choice, if you're on windows, or something equally stripped down - no microsoft word or any of that nonsense!) or download the file http://melannen.katycat.net/shiptoast.html , and then open that in your TEXT EDITOR (It will want to open in your browser, but don't let it.)

If you don't have a text editor at home, you can also edit the code right in the text box on this page, but there will be no way to save it except to copy + paste it somewhere else.

The only things you should need to know about javascript going in:
1. if it starts with // or <!-- , that's comments for humans. Computers will ignore it. You can do literally anything you want there.
2. Punctuation is very important, don't mess with it. Linebreaks and whitespace are mostly decorative, you can mess with them.

<html><head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<title>DREAMWIDTH IS FOR RANDOM SHIPTSTIONG GENERATOR</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
//change what is between the <title> </title> tags to change the page title. everything else up there is setup stuff, ignore it.

//this is the list of  shit. you can put any amount of shit here, as long as each piece is in quotation marks and they all have commas between them. You can even include links or <img> tags, if you put the html for them between quotation marks.
var commonShit=new Array("deadly snakes", "the dialectic", "venomous spiders", "chanterelles", "kale", "laughing derisively", "boots", "the drawers of the brain", "Jeremy Bentham's head", "wilderness", "benign joys", "cats", "high energy physics", "fulminate", "packets", "coffee", "accordions", "eigenvectors", "land stewardship", "the sorrows of conjugal life", "false novels", "monotonous primitivism", "sandwiches", "the hares of the angels", "misfortune", "the investment of intellectual capital", "railroads", "the infernal gamut", "eyeliner", "HyperText Transfer Protocol", "motion", "adding things on to it for practical reasons", "television", "inside a whale", "man", "taxes", "understand each other", "shoes", "nonchalance", "the waking state", "profound indifference", "original underwear", "ignore the description", "monkeywrenching", "problems of secondary interest", "a fork", "my love of shocking the reader", "degree of immediate absurdity", "a bad priest", "your moral boundaries", "the inexhaustible nature of the murmur", "the first white paper of chance", "John Wesley Powell", "concrete", "otters", "more as soothing anodyne than actual art");

//this is the selector of random shit. It pulls one random piece of shit out of your list above and gives it to whoever invoked the selector of random shit. you should not need to touch this.
function GetShit(){
var randomShit=Math.floor(Math.random()*commonShit.length);
var shitName;
shitName = commonShit[randomShit];										
return shitName;
}
	
//this is what mashes multiple pieces of shit together		
function PostShit(){
//this sets up some variables for later
var polyRandom = 1;
var shitHtml = "";
var shitName;

//this invokes the selector of random shit and accepts the first shit delivery
shitName = GetShit();
shitHtml = shitHtml + shitName;

//this while loop adds the second piece of shit and creates a small chance you will end up with three or more pieces of shit. If you only ever want one piece of random shit, delete everything between while and the next } you see.
while (polyRandom == 1){
    //this invokes the selector of random shit for the next piece of shit
	shitName = GetShit();
	//this mushes the new piece of shit onto the old shit. To change what connects the two pieces of shit, change what is between the quotes in the line below. / is a good one.
	shitHtml = shitHtml + " vs. " + shitName;
	//this sets the odds of getting an extra piece of shit. To change the odds, change the number in the line below to something greater than 1. The lower the number, the more likely you will get extra shit. If the number is 10 or more, you will always have exactly 2 pieces of shit. 1 or less will turn on a firehose of shit, and then it will hit the fan.
	polyRandom = Math.floor(Math.random()*8);
	}

//this outputs the result to the webpage.
document.getElementById("shipShit").innerHTML = shitHtml;

}
</script></head><body>
<center><br

<br><input type="button" onclick="PostShit()" value="let's be old and erudite">
<br><br>

<div id="shipShit">this is not a shitpost</div>
<br>

<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>

<br><small><small>idea via <a href="https://sara.dreamwidth.org/551536.html">sara</a> - coded by <a href="http://melannen.dreamwidth.org/">melannen</a> - made possible by the old and erudite of dreamwidth<br>
2019 - all content in the public domain (including the source if you care)</small></small>
</center>
</body></html>

Read the contents! Follow the instructions! Change whatever you want to change! Then, save the file with whatever filename you want, and a .html file extension. Open the file you just saved in a web browser, and you should be able to test your new computer program that you forked yourself! If it doesn't do anything, that means you messed up the javascript syntax somehow. (You probably deleted a bit of punctuation you shouldn't have). If it does something but doesn't do what you wanted it to do, you probably accidentally told it to do something else (look more carefully at what you actually want it to do.)

If you try this and it doesn't work and you can't figure out why, or if you need me to break something down more simply or I missed a step, feel free to ask in a comment! (You will probably need to put any bits of code in <textarea> tags or dw will try to read them as html.)

Now, to actually share it with other people, you need to be able to upload it somewhere that will let you run javascript, which does not include dreamwidth. If you have your own website, you can definitely upload it there. If you don't, I am going to be home for the long weekend, and I will offer to host any basic forks from this code on my website ~~that I am leeching from my sister shhhh~~ if you get them to me by next Tuesday. Email me your .html file (my @dreamwidth.org address should still work if you don't have my main one) and I will test it and then upload it and send you the new web address!

The next step - once you are a real coder, who has made a real javascript program - is to learn how to do it right. That's harder. (It's still mostly just messing around with shit in other people's code, though.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is excellent and I will absolutely try to use a modified version of the code for sparking ideas! (Which may or may not turn into longform seriousness!)

\o/

in the spirit of shitposting: NOICE

I warne you about stairs1

bro

shit lets be shitposts

HAVE THIS LOVELY BOUQUET OF INTERNETS

(really this February shitpost thing just keeps getting better and better

And it's not even February!

EXCELLENT!

YOur generator gave me "the investment of intellectual capital vs. benign joys" which I'm pretty sure is an essay and not a shitpost. (It spit out other stuff, but that was the first one.)

I tried it again and got "problems of secondary interest vs. television".

I think your generator wants me to make Actual Content.

I have gotten "Wilderness vs. Land Management" far more times than is statistically likely, I am having the same problem. :/

Wow, thanks!!

My actual biggest problem with Tumblr's idiocy and potential upcoming collapse is that it's a damn good place to host JavaScript stuff. It's where I host Poem Line for Title, as well as a few random ship generators.

...huh, wow. I tried putting the bookmarklet in a tumblr post and it didn't work, but that basically just... overrides the entire tumblr? That's cool (and a MASSIVE security issue, I suspect...) How do you that ? Is it in the layout, or just in a post?

Edit appearance -> Edit theme -> Edit HTML, and then Ctrl+a and paste in your desired website layout. Doesn't work on mobile, but whatever. Note that you do need some HTML in there to "run" the JS, while a bookmarklet can be just pure JS, but it's apparently considered a very good option for JS hosting.

Honest question, what is a shitpost? I have never figured this out. Is it anything that isn't specifically related to something, like it's just random?

Okay and Actual Relevant Comment, here's another way to do randomizers and put them online. I do it in excel for pairing generators, but it's also can be done in gdocs.

1) Make a list of things, one on each line.
2) In the column to the left of this, have numbers from 1 to wherever it goes. I fancy this up and have it autogenerated by using the ROW() formula and then subtract to get to 1, so if the list starts on row 2, the formula is ROW()-1
3) Made a random formula to pick a number. I go fancy and tell it to get a random number between the smallest number in col A and the biggest number in column A so I don't have to know what my biggest and smallest numberss are. RANDBETWEEN(Min(A:A),Max(A:A)) does the trick.
4) Find whatever value is in column B for that using vlookup.
=VLOOKUP(E3,A2:B12,2,false) , where E3 is the cell with the random number (or just put the randomzation in the vlookiup:
=VLOOKUP(RANDBETWEEN(min(A:A),max(A:A)),A2:B12,2,false) )

Quick'n'dirty gdocs version: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10Ew-Ho0SUJznENvfGVxDU0401yVwM2Pwf82eLV_Xcrk/edit?usp=sharing There's prettier ways to do it, but this is the 8am version ;)

Cool! (Of course by the time you've done all the spreadsheet formulas you've done nearly as much coding as you would in javascript. :P )

(A few times at work I've been like "I can do it for you in javascript or I can do it for you in excel. Just please don't make me do it in google forms. Please.") (many of the people at work think that both javascript and any excel formulas more complicate than SUM are magic.)

There was a portion of my life where I was spending about half my time trying to convince people to just click the button in excel that says "format as table" and that it would solve 90% of their problems for them. Unreadable formulas? Totals rows? Keeping the header row as you scroll down? Nice filters? Alternate row shading? Auto-expansion? Borders? Boom.

That was the time I got my severe annoyance at ever being referred to as magic, because it was always done by people who refused to just learn how to do basic things and would send it off to me as "oh, Lanna does magic". Especially by people who had certificates from trainings that covered all of this, and we both knew it.

rydra_wong is currently hosting a discussion on that very question! I did not contribute because I don't have a real answer (other than "I know it when I see it". Or possibly ""utterly without redeeming social importance.")

(Despite all the stuff that I agree with about dw posts not having to be elaborate or substantial... it is somehow very dreamwidth that we respond to "dreamwidth is for shitposting" by doing things like creating challenges, teaching javascript, and having a symposium on definitions.)

I think I parse it as somewhere halfway between "I am posting this despite knowing this is shit" and "I am posting this specifically to be a shit".

Edited 2019-01-18 14:57 (UTC)

A tad OT to the post itself, but in response to this comment: I don't think posts have to be substantial, but I gotta admit I'm better at commenting on posts I can actually add to. I just don't know how I'm supposed to respond to "I went to work, came home, took the dog for a walk, ordered Chinese." I'll sometimes just say "Chinese food is yummy" or something, but I always worry it sounds dismissive (even though that's not how I mean it). IRL I have those conversations too, but you know, there are facial expressions and nods to move the conversation forward.

At the same time, I sometimes find it difficult to comment on substantial posts too, because I'm not always sure I really got the point.

Edited 2019-01-18 15:27 (UTC)

Yes, particularly if the person posting is not necessarily encouraging anyone to respond to particular parts of their post, such as "Do you have this species of bird where you live?" or "What's your favorite takeout food?" etc.

This is where a kudos/like button would be very handy.

This code is more enjoyable (and also incidentally much more COMPREHENSIBLE) than approximately 90% of the things I am required to write/modify/maintain in my Serious Paid Day Job.

(I understand why corporate doesn't like profanity, but sometimes you just have to say "this is a fucking horrible hack", you know?)

I mean, the original pairing generator version had "ship" in the variable names a lot more often than "shit", but you're supposed to make sure the variable names are relevant to what they do, right? :D

Appropriate variable naming is VERY IMPORTANT. *solemn face*

Hahaha, lol, yeah. I love it. I wish I got to write code with "shit" in every method name. *dreams on*

(sorry for coming in in the middle. just wanted to say thank you for sharing this a+ script.)

You are a wonderful, wonderful person.

Pardon me, I'm just going to pause a moment to renew my subscription to Dreamwidth. Because this, this glorious madness, is what I'm here for, and I am so very glad there's a place for it.

Yes! Give Dreamwidth money! :D

SHIPTOAST FOR THE WIN

Yusss! I actually learned some Javascript from this post. I'm a back end developer. :)

Hooray! :D You know you to write computer programs!

So!! I tried to alter the code you provided to make a v simple pairing generator (for a particular fandom of mine, Ensemble Stars, with a biiig ensemble cast perfect for something like this) BUT it does have a clear flaw when used for that purpose: the code allows for the same name to be picked twice, generating selfcest pairings! For another more sci fi oriented canon that might actually be vaguely plausible, but not so in this one.

So: is there any way to make sure the second (or third) name picked is different from the first?

I left the selfcest pairings in there on purpose because it was meant to come up with silly, implausible things. :D But it you want to take them out, it's definitely possible!

The easiest way would be, after you've gotten the second/third name but before you smush it onto the others, to check whether it matches anything else that's already in the pile.

I would do this with another "while" loop, and probably the "includes()" method, to see if the pile already includes your new name, and try again if it doesn't.

It would need to go between

 //this invokes the selector of random shit for the next piece of shit
	shitName = GetShit();

(which pulls a new piece of shit, and stores it as shitName)
and

//this mushes the new piece of shit onto the old shit. To change what connects the two pieces of shit, change what is between the quotes in the line below. / is a good one.
	shitHtml = shitHtml + " vs. " + shitName;

(which adds the new piece of shit onto shitHtml, which is the the existing pile of shit.)

I would probably write it something like this:

//checks to see if the new shit is already on the pile of shit, keeps going back and getting new shit until it finds one that isn't.
while (shitHtml.includes(shitName)){
shitName = GetShit();}

I've haven't tested it, though, and I've never used the includes() method before (I just looked it up on w3schools to see if there was already a tool to do what I needed.) Try it and see if it works, and if it doesn't, see if you can figure out what I did wrong?

This is the fast and sloppy way, though. I think to do it right, you'd need to either turn off the polyamory option, or completely change the way it's written to make it so the program can remember more than one name at a time. The main disadvantage here is that if you have two characters named "Ann" and "Annabel", it's going to think "Annabel" *always* already includes Ann, and never allow an Annabel/Ann pairing. ("Ann/Annabel" would be okay, though, since "Ann" doesn't include "Annabel". And "Ann the Pilot" and "Annabel" should be fine, so just be careful with how you write your list of names.)

Ah, this works perfectly, even with the poly options! :D Thanks so much!! And luckily it doesn't seem like the Ann/Annabel situation should apply? And if so I could just add in surnames anyway? Which kinda seems like the easy way around it but oh well n.n;; Still mostly don't understand what's going on in there but it's p interesting so I'll keep looking at it - always thought it'd be rly useful to know a lil' coding!

So, would it be all right if I sent you the .html then? :)

Yep, send it right over!

Okay, sent to melannen@dreamwidth.org and the yahoo email listed on your profile just in case because I wasn't 100% sure if either was correct. n.n;;

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

More Joy: Itchy Coding Fingers Edition

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